Leach, Amy

English

Iowa Research Online

Masthead Logo The Iowa Review
Volume 36
Issue 1 Spring Article 10
2006
When Trees Dream of Being Trees
Amy Leach
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Recommended Citation
Leach, Amy. "When Trees Dream of Being Trees." The Iowa Review 36.1 (2006): 54-54. Web.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.6166
When Trees Dream of Being Trees 
The tree decided to stop growing after it grew its thousandth leaf. 
"No more," it whispered, and started throwing flimsily attached 
twigs and old nests down, and shaking the birds out. "I am a terrible 
tree! A thousand leaves is more than enough to prove that! I am 
slow and slight and my leaves are not lustrous. I have never made a 
flower, never made an apricot, never made an acorn. Go away birds! 
I am an impostor tree! I will be a post, if I can just shake off these 
redundant branches," and the tree bounced up and down, twirled 
violently, and tried some catapulting maneuvers in an effort to fling 
off its limbs. Nothing much was flung, except for some leaves and 
a butterfly, and they were instantly free from its flinging force, and 
ended up drifting away instead of zinging through the air. And so 
the tree started to slam itself against the earth. Its branches were 
most certainly broken this way, but they were not broken off: such 
fibrous material does not easily come loose, does not easily separate 
from itself. So the tree was hung with broken creaking branches. 
Aghast, it felt itself growing. And, knowing it would only grow 
more of itself, it cried, "I must get out of the sunlight! I must get 
out of the rain!" It tried to sink into the dirt. But trees with their 
spreading root systems are even harder to push down into the dirt 
than they are to pull up. So the tree finally just stood there with its 
smashed branches, exhausted, in the late afternoon sunlight. The 
other trees around regarded the tree going mad without much com 
ment. They had seen this dreadful thing happen before, when trees 
dream of being trees. 
54 
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